What is government's role to support education and training?
One of my organization's primary legislative concerns - the Highway Bill, or the Federal Surface Transportation Act – was finally passed by the House and Senate and was signed in to law by the president. It seems the major initiatives in D.C. have now taken a back seat to the political silly season.
Passage of the highway bill will be a boost for commerce, particularly in the transportation industry.
There are several initiatives occurring on a range of other issues, but for the most part, once the legislative summer recess begins, it will be nothing but endless commercials on TV and radio, robo-calls, e-mail blasts, direct mail pleas for donations and personal appearances by politicians all over this great country, through the first week of November.
I personally think this is all great. They aren't in their offices writing comprehensive legislation - the kind that you have to pass to find out what is in it. We are somewhat safe, except for all of the political noise.
One of the main focuses of the past few years in D.C. has been what government can do to boost employment and start the economy moving. There are many schemes: tax credits to hire people (employers would hire anyway if they had work for them); energy initiatives that get mired in battles with various interest groups; labor regulations in place of failed legislation; stimulus funding for public sector workers; and the list goes on.
While there was a fair amount of discussion in Washington on how to help with training the future workforce, I think they must have spent that money on those "attractive" wind turbines that I saw all over Indiana and Wisconsin during my recent vacation.
Changes in Manufacturing and Training
The future workforce, or for that matter the present workforce, face many challenges, particularly in manufacturing and in the parts and service industries. In manufacturing, the trends in productivity over the past 50 years are quite impressive, unless you were hoping to land an assembly line position.
Automation, lean processes and supply-chain efficiencies have collectively boosted manufacturing output at a rate that is staggering, while labor content has remained relatively flat. Direct labor has been replaced by robotics, new technologies for fastening and highly automated processes.
The new jobs are in the technical disciplines, such as engineering, IT and other areas. Factory positions are available mainly in higher tech, highly-skilled labor and supply and logistics management.
Training for all of those positions are no longer OJT (on-the-job training) as in the old days. The training happens in secondary education.
In today's modern repair shop it is not uncommon to see technicians wearing white shop clothes and carrying laptops and using diagnostic tools. Laser wheel alignment setups with computerized data systems, diagnostic tools for electronic engine and braking systems are all common.
The old ways of training mechanics for service are pretty much a thing of the past. That has all been replaced by the community colleges and vocational schools, plus the training centers at the OEM level and the hundreds of training sessions conducted by suppliers and consultants for technical updates.
Government Contributtion
There are still jobs, but they require an educated workforce. Is the government contributing to the solutions needed for this new type of environment? Actually yes, through the federal student loan programs and at the county and state level, with community colleges and state universities.
All of those programs require tax payer support.
Does it make sense to give tax incentives for immediate employment? It is difficult to see how there is any real value to that. A current bill under consideration would reward employers for adding to their workforces, and it amounts to a lot of money. Our big challenge then would be fraud prevention.
The nation's capital has a pattern of proposing and passing massive bills with huge appropriations of funds, many times with political motives. Once the funding is appropriated, there seems to be little interest in executing a plan to use it effectively, or efficiently. They either administer and regulate it to death, or they leave it so open-ended that fraudulent use of the funds occur.
Think of some of the fraud cases involving Medicare. This is a well-intentioned program, highly popular with the public, but the scam artists came out of the woodwork to exploit the weaknesses in the administrative end of things.
Is there a role for the federal and state governments to support education and training? Absolutely. Should it extend beyond the current support with providing public universities and colleges and student loan funding? Most are not too sure who, what, how or where that should take place.
A case could be made for special tax treatment for employers providing continuing education for current and newly hired employees; perhaps even supporting payroll for employees while in training. However, not too many business owners and executives would take well to that type of program, except maybe the scam artists.
Usually the regulation that occurs with financial support is onerous.
A good start would be in the area of removing many of the current barriers to progress, such as reducing corporate income taxes; maintaining the current individual tax rates for small business S-Corps; rethinking some of the government supported unionization activities; and reconsidering some of the environmental regulations enacted lately. That would help to spur more employment.
I try hard not to inject politics in to my columns, but I suspect it is part of my DNA. To help business, the government really needs to understand that less is more.
One of my favorite TV political personalities is former New Jersey Supreme Court Judge Andrew P. Napolitano. In his words: "The government that governs least, governs best."
